Irregular Chattanooga

At its heart, Chattanooga is a city of weekday motion. No parking is allowed from Monday to Friday, and on Saturday and Sunday no one bothers to come. The city fathers have put a tax on staying still.

In the middle of a circle of new cathedrals, an old spring bursts through brick, nurturing a sacred grove of fruit trees. Ascetics engaging in civil disobediance against the laws of the city of locomotion prostrate themselves at this shrine as newcomers bend to the water, anoint their foreheads, and hold themselves in still contemplation of internal transitions.

Above, the clouds are thin, but they never go away. The only way to get from there to here is to walk toward a third destination.